Israel's Netanyahu visits Moscow

By Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

Vestnik Kavkaza recently predicted that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Israel Our Home Party, would make his first visit to Russia after being exculpated and welcomed back to the Foreign Ministry.

Yesterday, the Jerusalem Magistrate Court exculpated Lieberman, but the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Moscow to meet President Vladimir Putin on November 20 was announced before the court’s decision.

This proves the disappointment of Israel with the US and, possibly, attempts to reorient the political course for closer cooperation with Russia and formation of strategic partnership. At the same time, the suddenness of the prime minister’s visit to Moscow shows that pace of the process was highly underestimated.

Netanyahu will try to persuade the Russian president to keep anti-Iranian sanctions in force until the Islamic Republic agrees to shut down its nuclear program. The two leaders will also discuss the situation in Syria and the stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian relations.

The latest round of talks was ruing because Israeli Minister for Justice Tzipi Livni refused to officially deny statements made in an interview with US media. She said that Palestinian authorities want release of prisoners from terrorist prisons in order to continue negotiations and neglect construction of settlements in Judea and Samaria.

All observers have a common opinion that such agreement did take place. But what Israeli politicians did was set Palestinian authorities up in the eyes of their people by telling about it, similar to the way it happened in 2008, when they told about the request of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, to continue the military operation in Gaza until total obliteration of Hamas.

“Unfortunately, some of our politicians have a long tongue, and they cannot hold it in their mouth,” say Israeli observers, believing that this time the outrage of Palestinian partners is understandable.